


Pain (Innocent Eyes Edition)

by thegogglesdonothing (genderneutralnoun)



Series: Water and Scales (Full Innocent Eyes Edition) [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Adrenaline, Battlefield Trauma, Cryptid Beasts, F/F, Near Death, Panic Attacks, Possibly Disturbing Imagry, Protectiveness, Warning for the squeamish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:26:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genderneutralnoun/pseuds/thegogglesdonothing
Summary: Noun; 1. physical suffering or distress, as due to injury, illness, etc.; 2. mental or emotional suffering or torment.Fire, fire, flicker and flame; a panic, a promise, and pleasure in pain.Robin and Lucina do their best to protect each other, both physically and emotionally. This can cause conflictions, but in the end, they've the same goal, don't they?





	1. Panic

At first, they thought it was wolves. After all, that was the only thing it could be. Wasn’t it?

Shouting from the back of the line startled the whole company. Morgan, on high alert ever since the news, dashed towards the back and grabbed the shoulders of the panicked runner.

“What happened?” the junior tactician said, raising his voice to be heard above the chaos. Some of the horses had spooked, and, with the deep snow on either side of of the road, tried to charge through the crowd. This only succeeded in causing more discord.

“I-I’m not sure,” the man in front of him stammered, the red scarf that indicated his job having slipped loose from how hard he was running. “We were just moving along like normal, t-then… these _things_ jumped out of the snow like wolves, hooting and growling; they attacked the horses, I saw Nancy get bit on her hind leg before I ran here…”

“Okay, thanks.” Morgan scanned the area before him in the way Robin badgered him to do. _Don’t figure it out on the fly if you can! You’ll think better, faster, if you plan your route before you’re actually in danger. A step away from the rush can help far more than it’ll ever hurt._ “Stay here and rest; you’ve done well. Or if you feel obliged, you can come with to help your friends; but you stick to me like a bad stain.”

The runner nodded, and followed the junior tactician as he dashed through his route. “We’ll turn here- watch that horse, it’s gonna kick- around the cart now- oh, poo, there’s Risen now?” Morgan skidded to a halt and grabbed his new companion, ducking them both behind a cart on its side. “We’re under attack!” he shouted, projecting his voice like he’d been practicing. “Risen on our west flank; unknown attackers on the end! Get this to our commander!” He winced as his voice cracked on the _our,_ but he was pretty sure they got the message. The panicked screaming went down a little bit, at least. Thankfully, he’d remembered to keep it short and concise instead of using fancy terminology.

The teen tactician and his accompaniment made their way to the back to the sound of odd howls and roars from their destination. “There's more of them,” the runner said faintly.

Morgan stopped in his tracks as he found the attackers. He couldn't even begin to describe them; they moved _too_ fast and were _too_ big for wolves or any other creature that should reasonably be in the area. One caught sight of him and screamed horribly, like a bird of prey in its death throes.

Just before it pounced, Morgan heard, clear as day, a familiar shout of anger and defiance, the voice that of his mother's wife; and he knew it meant something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

 

* * *

 

“Robin!”

The world seemed be shaking- or was that her? She didn't know. All she knew was that she had seen the corner of her wife's cloak whip out of sight and into the chaos of the crowd, and that she couldn't find her now. “Robin! Robin, where are you?!”

A bone-chilling howl rose up from the snow-covered fields, and it was answered with others around it. Lucina felt a deep cold wave sweep through her, knocking her breathless; when she could look up, she did so to find a horror baring its fangs at her.

It was no wolf. It _had_ fur, or feathers, or hair; she couldn’t identify which. Whatever is was, the creature’s coverings was matted and dirty, pale and colorless in the grey-and-black shades of little light. Its eyes were not animal, more human than wild; but at the same time, exactly far enough away that they just felt _wrong._ Its eyes burned with a dark light; wisps of black almost-smoke trailed from its tear ducts, marking the air it traveled through before slowly fading to nothing. A mangled- and sloppy-looking tongue slid out of its mouth and licked all the way across its lips, leaving more spittle than it wiped away.

Lucina blocked its pounce by tilting the Falchion, letting its own force slide it across the blade and drop behind her, then took off before it could reorientate itself. “Robin!”

She finally found her.

The tactician’s eyes glittered angrily as she launched Elwind after Elwind at the beasts around her, robes flaring as her maneuvers morph into a deadly dance, evading and blasting in perfect succession. Step, attack, leap, duck; a practiced rhythm of movement.

Risen pushed their way into the circle of strange monsters, some holding battered spellbooks or rusty swords. Lucina snapped out of her daze and dashed to Robin’s side, her back facing the other’s. “Lucina?” The blonde’s face twisted, concealed pain and frustration both prevalent. “What are you doing here?!”

“I could ask you the same thing!” Another beast pounced to meet the edge of her blade, then ran away with a pained yelp, blood dribbling from the sides of its mouth. “You shouldn’t be here! You need to stay safe!”

“It won’t matter if we get overtaken because I did nothing!” Robin tossed the spent Elwind to bonk a smaller monster, before whipping out an Elfire and creating a blast that made a hissing noise as it turned snow to steam. “I have to- LOOK OUT!”

Lucina felt a body smaller than her tackle her torso with enough force to send her toppling, then heard a horribly familiar voice shriek in pain as a white-hot flame shot through where she had just been, singeing some of her hair. She had tilted just enough as she fell to catch sight of Robin, cloak scorched away to show a huge, twisted, bloody mess of a burn on the blonde’s back.

The tactician fell limply to the ground, the snow around her melting from leftover heat.

“NO!”

Lucina shouted in blind rage, her vision going red as she dug her heels in, standing protectively over Robin’s broken form. Heat and adrenaline surged through her body, and she cut through the horrid beasts as fast as they could leap at her.

A snarl behind her. She was moments too late to stop the largest of the monsters from sinking its fangs into Robin’s thigh, and she heard the smaller girl cry out in pain even though she was still unconscious.

Lucina’s blade slashed out and batted the beast away from her wife, the edge cutting deep into the creature’s side. It howled in pain as bright red blood spurted from its wound, and other howls from all over the battlefield answered. It stared back at its attacker, brow furrowed in some mockery of human anger. In an odd, timeless moment, Lucina’s eyes found a dark circle on the base of the creature’s neck; a natural birthmark which almost looked like a necklace- no, a collar, like a knight of royal blood might wear; before with another cold wave, the moment passed, and the attackers were gone as suddenly as they had appeared, both beasts and Risen.

Lucina panted, the fury draining from her body and leaving behind a bone-deep tiredness. Strands of ideas ran through her mind, too fast to follow; things like _where did they come from_ or _how did they sneak up on us_ or _why am I standing here when they could come to kill me at any moment_ ; horribly distracting worries from her body still in danger mode, trying to keep her alive. The princess knew, as all true warriors did, that the rush of adrenaline was not nearly all which it was cracked up to be; it was the ultimate panic attack, a burst of unnatural energy as the mind went to its last resort to keep itself safe. It was certainly better than dying, but it was never preferable; and Lucina knew that her body, in particular, jumped into panics all too often.

Then she snapped out of her daze and _remembered._ She remembered, and couldn’t believe she had forgotten for a moment. It all came rushing back; the incredible horror of seeing her beloved fall to such a horribly familiar foe, of knowing that she was the original target, that Robin took that shot for _her._ Lucina dropped to her knees with a , one arm going to wrap around Robin, the other moving to cup her face in her hand. She was faintly aware of the _crunch-crunch-crunch_ of people running towards them through the snow.

“Robin,” she gasped, her voice strained with emotion. “Robin, baby, please wake up…  Look at me, Robin…”

Robin did not respond.

“No!” Lucina let out a sob, clutching her wife closer. “Not you, Robin! Open your eyes! OPEN YOUR EYES!”

Even the wind itself seemed to mourn.

 

* * *

 

Unknown to our heroine, the wind did not mourn, through it was a close thing. It howled news of both tragedy and triumph, for written fate had been averted; through not without leaving behind wounds. It brought its news back down the path the great army had come from, and settled where they had.

As soon as the news was passed on, the recipient pulled her cloak from her closet, taking no longer than that to be on her way. There would be no time to lose.


	2. Promise

Lissa tutted to herself as she spread the numbing balm across Robin’s back. “For such a tactical genius, you sure can be an idiot sometimes.”

The healer had already cleaned and bandaged the bite on her calf, as it had been losing blood a lot faster than the burn and so needed more immediate attention. Thankfully, the beast hadn’t pulled off any chunks of flesh, so the tactician would be still be able to walk come enough rest and care; but it nevertheless had bitten deep, and she would probably be scarred for the rest of her life, and perhaps have a limp.

Robin smiled, the pained furrow of her brow not matching up with her charade. “I assure you, it made- ow- perfect sense for me to dive into that blast…

“Not according to Lucina, and excuse me if I trust your wife’s value on your life over your own, Missus Stay-Up-Until-Dawn-Reading-Obscure-Texts.” Lissa’s hand traveled downward, reaching a darker spot in the burn. “Ugh, this looks nasty. Never go into healing if you've a weak stomach…”

“What’s it look like?” Robin asked, suddenly curious.

“That's a pretty morbid question, but I don't see any harm in answering.” The yellow-blonde doctor got up to grab a towel and bowl of water, sitting back down with a sigh. “It's… It's kind of peeling, here and here,” she said, pointing to certain areas. “It's all around a bit darker than your natural skin tone, and in this part here, the fire burned down to blood, so it looks like dried blood, but a lot worse. It's also flaking off when I touch it, like your skin's been cooked right off.

Robin shuddered. “Okay, you're right. That’s more than a little disturbing.”

“As I said before, I'm gonna have to clean all of this dead skin off,” Lissa said, now running the towel down her wound. Thanks to the numbing balm, it didn't hurt as much as it could have, but Robin still twitched and flinched as it rubbed across raw nerves. “Then you'll need some of our disinfectant paste, and some heavy-duty bandages to pack you back up. Oh, _gross._ ” Robin felt an odd, tickling sensation as Lissa picked something up. “Just this huge single flake of skin… oh, joy; I think the burn went over some of your acne. Yep, those are definitely pimples… at least they _were_.”

“Ugh. Thanks for the mental image.”

“Hey, I’ve got the actual image over here, I don't think you can say anything.” The cleric got up to wring the towel out. “Could you lay on your front without messing anything up? This is gonna take a while.”

“Fine…”

 

* * *

 

About two-thirds of the way through it, Lucina poked her head through the tent flap. She blushed when she saw Robin was shirtless, but Lissa gestured for the princess to come in and make herself comfortable. “Not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before,” she said reasonably, only deepening Lucina’s color.

Robin tried to turn her head and wave, but Lissa grabbed her arm and scolded her. “Robin, just stop. You’re really trying too hard.”

The tactician only sighed in response.

“If I’m being a distraction, I can leave…” Lucina tried to look away from her wife.

Lissa shook her head. “No, she’s just being difficult. And you came just in time to help me with these bandages.”

“Of… of course.”

It took a while, but Lissa couldn’t help noticing that Robin made significantly less complaints with Lucina’s hands on her. “There,” she said at last, pulling back to examine their work. “That'll do for at least the rest of the day. Robin, don't think this means we're gonna let you off easy. You've just gotten yourself into deeper trouble. I _will_ get you the right amount of rest and relaxation for a pregnant woman of your body type and age if I have to get Lucina to sit on you to do it.”

“I thought the purpose was to punish me,” Robin quipped, causing Lucina to hide her face with her hands.

“Alright, I’m done,” Lissa announced. “I think I’m needed in the other tents anyway. I’ll just give you two some privacy, shall I?”

Lucina didn’t have the composure to retort, and Robin saw no reason to.

After Lissa left, there was silence. “Was there something you wanted to say?” the tactician said eventually.

“Yes,” Lucina growled, surprising even herself. Or perhaps it wasn't that surprising; the frustration of inaction was catching up to her. “I’m, I'm feeling really upset right now- I mean, I nearly got you _killed,_ do you realize that?!” She was shouting before she realized it. “You took that hit because of _me!_ ”

“Lucina, you were in danger,” Robin said, so calmly and resignedly that it made Lucina want to stab something and scream and kiss her in reassurance all at once. “There’s no way I could have just stood there-”

“But you're more important than me!” The princess found her point. “And I mean even more than usual, which is quite a lot. Think of your importance to the army, your importance to Chrom; think of what, of _who_ you're carrying now- and, Robin, think of _me!_ And I know that's the most selfish reason to say, but it's true. I don't… I don't know what I’d do if I lost you. Just the thought, the fact that we're here having this conversation here now, it's more than I can stand. A-and every time I look at you… Oh, love, your beautiful skin; I couldn't tear my eyes away from that horrible burn on you, and even now I can't get it out of my head. A-and you look so pale…”

“I always look like this, though,” Robin said with a sad smile. It was so hard for Lucina not to cry right then.

“No! You don't- it would be so hard to describe you if you've never seen yourself, not truly. When… When you're happy, you practically glow. B-but now you just look sad, and hurt, and resigned, and… it's so hard to see you like this.”

The tactician didn't respond.

“A-and,” Lucina continued, “I thought- again, you're so important, now. You need to be taking care of yourself, at least for me if not for yourself! What happened to ‘our future’? Why can't you understand- you've got more than yourself to think of, now!”

For an aching moment, Robin was silent. Then she spoke. “I… You're right, Lucina. I’ve been a fool. I didn't think… We're _married,_ and I couldn't get it through my thick head that that means I need to think in terms of us instead of you or I.”

“Oh, love.” Lucina sat down next to her wife, her hand going to tilt the blonde’s face towards hers. “Don't worry about it. I know you only had my best interests at heart. This is something we both have to learn, and I can wait as long as you need.”


	3. Pleasure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think this chapter seems a little stilted, you're right. The [original edition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090392/chapters/30181662) had explicit content, but in the name of accessibility, I've posted this SFW version.

It seemed like a long, long time that they sat there, one comforted by the other's protection, the other comforted by protecting the one. When the tears slowed, it was Lucina that first kissed Robin; a gentle one on her cheek, not able to resist the idea of kissing away the wetness on the tactician's face.

"I love you," Lucina said. "I love you so much. I love you more than everything in the entire world."

Robin blushed. "That's a dangerous thing to say these days, you know," she said quietly.

"I don't care." Lucina cupped her wife's face in her hand, tilting her head so their eyes could meet. "Because it's true. No matter what, I-" The princess's voice broke for a moment, and she glanced away and coughed before composing herself. "Right now, I can't imagine doing something that would, or do nothing when inaction would, hurt you in any way. I don't know about when- if I have to make a hard choice- whether I could forget my own happiness and, and, let y-you go if it would..."

"Lucina, stop." Robin slid her hand up to the bluette's cheek, and her fingers began to brush away tears. "Let's not think about that now. I... I trust you to do what's right, if things have to... We can't plan for something that emotionally charged and variable. So let's stop talking about it."

Lucina let out a shuddering sigh. "Okay. You're right. I... I'm sorry."

The blonde leaned forward, resting on her wife's chest. "Whatever happened, or will happen, I'm glad you came here tonight," Robin said, her voice soft and adoring. "I really... I really need you right now."

"I need you, too," Lucina whispered.


End file.
